I wanted something Nice for CHA this summer. I was thinking that since I'm doing Make & Takes and showing product for 3-4 days straight at a trade show, and people would be constantly looking at my hands, it'd be fun to have them done. 2 years ago I got a regular manicure for CHA and half-way through the show I was already touching it up with white Sharpie Paint Markers because it was so dinged up. This year I went with Gel nails.They were amazing.They were beautiful all week long, strong and long! Almost too long - by the end of a couple of weeks I couldn't type LOL. So, I had them re-done once later in summer, but really short so that I could keep them longer (so I thought). I neglected to take into consideration the fact that since my HAIR grows unbelievably fast, I should have known that my nails would also.

Thus...my gel nail dilemma.Gel nails typically should last from 4-6 weeks before you go back to get them "filled" (ie: filed down, re-gelled, etc). 6 weeks was do-able, I thought, but take a look at this picture of the growth on my nails after only 2 weeks. You can see where the gel ends and my real nail is showing at the bottom.

The other trouble with that is that if they've grown that much down by the cuticle, they've also grown out that much further at the top and now I can barely type again. I love the look of long fingernails but I can't function like this. Today - my first day of work at school - one of my jobs was peeling mactac off of the backing to put nametag labels on locker doors for the kids in my class. Do you think I could do it? Well...I did manage to do a few but most of the time I made the kids feel like they were doing me a big favour to do their own :) These have got to come off. Oh well....it was fun while it lasted.

And, if you read my Multitude Monday blog from yesterday, you'll read that I had some photos taken by my friend who was attempting to capture "blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled" into a photo. She gave me permission to share some of her work on here - so today....photos of my hands.When I was posing for these pictures, I was basically doing exactly that - posing. Trying to sit still so her light would be right and trying to capture the stream of water being poured onto my hands.

When I looked at the pictures later though, partially because I'm a visual learner...it really hit me what it would be like to actually sit and wait for God, hands open, waiting to be filled, hungering and thirsting for more of Him. On a regular, daily basis. I want this. I sing like this sometimes, hands up. I pray like this alone in my room, hands open. But I guess I have never seen myself like this before. It might be my friend's Mad-Photography skills bringing it to life or it might be that I'm exactly at a place in my life right now where I have nothing to bring to God except these empty hands. And I have no expectations - only the expectancy that if I come, He will fill me with whatever He thinks is necessary for me right now.